


And In The Forest I Could Smell His Blood

by Mr_Elementle



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, dadvid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 04:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15744612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Elementle/pseuds/Mr_Elementle
Summary: In the dark of the night Daniel returns to destroy the people who destroyed him, starting with David, but turning his attention to Max when he interrupts.A second of time, a flash of metal, the smell of blood and vomit.David will do whatever he has to do to protect his campers.





	And In The Forest I Could Smell His Blood

David was cornered, the gash in his hip was staining his shirt with crimson and the various cuts and slashes on the rest of his body were all pooling blood onto the forest floor beneath him. David fumbled to try and open his survival knife, some last form of defense, but he knew it was too late. Daniel was walking towards him, slowly, so slowly, it felt like time was dripping like sap from a tree and David prayed that it would stop completely. David knew that he would die here, alone in the forest, without Gwen or any of the campers knowing where he was, without them knowing they were in danger. David reached into his pocket with his free hand, shaky hands trying to type a message to Gwen in secret"daniel hwre not safw, goodbte", typing and sending the message blind he could only pray Gwen got it in time. David closed his eyes and waited...

and waited...

 

"David where the fuck have you bee-"

 

 

 

David's eyes shot open at the sound of Max's voice, 'no no no no no no no' he thought. Daniel's attention shifted from David, his head snapping towards Max, his neck making a sickening crack sound as it did, "You!" Daniel's voice was like ice down his back, "I planned on coming for you next", he paused, “but i think it would be more fun if HE" he pauced glancing at David, "had to watch"

 

Max's eyes widened as they darted back and forth between Daniel and David's bloody body beneath the tree, David tried to yell for Max to run, but it was too late, Daniel was already grabbing the boy, holding him against a tree with one had while his other took his knife and began lacerating the boy, slashing through his hoodie and shirt, leaving long tears along his skin in no real order, his anger his only guidance.

 

It was a flash of desperation, a wild moment where David's fight or flight instinct forced him to fight, his adrenaline had taken over when he saw Daniel grab max and start cutting with wild abandon, David's body moved without command, rising from beneath the tree, the pain coming from the long gash in his hip blocked out as he gripped the handle of his survival knife. Daniel so lost in his work never even turned around as David made a mad dash towards him, knife outstretched and aimed for the blond's heart. In only a few seconds it happened, the metal handle of the blade felt heavy, so heavy in David's hand, the warm blood covering his fingers made it hard to keep ahold of as he places his palm flat against the bottom of the knife, giving it one more hard push causing it to sink deeper into Daniel's chest, his blood pooling with David's. Daniel said nothing as he dropped Max and started reaching behind himself, flailing his arms towards David with his knife, catching him a few times and opening small cuts on his face, David tried to kick him away, the knife sliding out of Daniel's back as he fell forward, so quickly it was over, and just as quickly David realized what he had done as he saw the blood... Thick and deep red, dripping from the end of the smooth steel blade.

 

"I-I didn't mean too... I just..." David felt woozy, the adrenaline wearing off and the pain returning to him made him feel faint, or maybe it was the blood loss, it was hard to tell in the dark.

 

David propped himself onto a nearby tree with his right hand, blade still clasped in his left. The forest was dark and silent, all life sans the three figures between the trees having long since fled from the previous commotion, only the dark rustle of the wind through the leafs and the heavy breathing and raspy aspirations of the three breaking the harsh sensory deprivation of the forest. David dropped the knife from his hand and began to wretch, dry heaving onto the ground as the stench of blood and his own actions overwhelmed him. The scene before him still barely registered. A small boy in the shredded remnants of a blue hoodie wide eyed and bleeding, so many lacerations shredding through his skin. Slumped next the him a taller figure, clothes crimson and splotched with blood ruining the pristine crisp white of the dress shirt underneath, dead center in the middle of his back a large wound still bleeding profusely, he struggled to cast glares at Max and David, his voice a gurgle as blood rushed to his throat with each attempt to cast damnation on them.

"you f-fucking killed him." max croaked, barely mustering the strength to say it at all.

"I... Oh god!" David wretched again "It's gonna be okay Max, I can handle this, I can handle this, I can handle this, I can han-" he started repeating himself over and over, eyes quickly glancing about the forest floor looking for something, anything, he didn't know what. There was nothing to find however, only Max, and Daniel's cooling corpse. "Max we have to- We have to..." silence. "Max?" silence, "Max!" silence... "MAX!" David threw himself off the tree towards Max's body quickly pulling off what was left of his sleeve and looking, searching, desperately for a pulse.

"..." nothing

"..." David said nothing

"...*ba-bump*..." A faint pulse

"Oh thank heavens." David was shaking as he picked Max up from the forest floor, "We have to get you to the hospital fast" he said his head still glancing about for some magical fix-all, but there was still none to be found, only one final glance at Daniel's body, the moon moving just through the leafs to show his matted bloody blond hair, filthy and tangled, cascading over his face obscuring his now eternal countenance. David pushed his own pain out of his mind as he carried Max through the forest, the foot trails so familiar to him that he followed them in pitch black without any hesitation, his feet carrying him through his forest on auto-pilot until the he saw the harsh electric light of the camp

 

"GWEN!"

 

Gwen rushed out the mess hall where the campers had been gathered after getting David's cryptic text message, "Jesus, David, where the hell have you been, we lost Ma-". Her words cut short as she saw the limp figure in his arms. "Oh my god Max."

"Pulse! Keys! Now! Stay with the campers!"

"Yeah, yeah" Gwen grasped around her hips looking for the key rings, ripping it off and shoving it in David's hand,

David rushed off towards the camp car, only glancing back long enough to tell Quartermaster to go "Take care of something" in the forest.

"umhum" Quarter master grunted, grabbing a shovel from beside him and heading out into the forest.

 

The ride seemed longer than possible, each stretch of road stretching further and further almost in front of David’s eyes, he’d driven to the hospital enough he should know about how long the ride was, but tonight time seemed to not care for normality or the expected, and instead preferred to drag on and on and on and on and on and on, each mile pulling itself in David's mind to four or five miles a piece. Each minute dripped like a thick molasseses slowing and thickening like the air in David's lungs as he became more and more certain they wouldn't make it in time. he was racing the clock, as he heard Max's breathing grow shallower and shallower, and well as his own vision darkening from blood loss. After an apparent eternity of driving he pulled into the hospital, leaving the car running his slammed his door open, holding on the car to keep upright as he made his way to the passenger door to pull Max out, the front seat of the car was filthy now, between their blood on the seats and David's vomit on the floorboard, but that was a problem for another time. David gripped Max tightly in his arms as he stumbled through hospital doors into the lobby, A short girl in nurses scrubs running over, David knew she was saying something, but as his vision darkened he felt disconnected from the world, he saw her waving for more nurses but her words were lost to the pounding sound of his own pulse in his ears. David was pretty sure he opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn't sure if anything came out before the world went black and he felt cold tile on his face.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Harsh white filament lights, not natural sunlight.

 

The smell of disinfectant, not of pine.

 

The hard tile, not the soft dirt.

 

The groves of trees around the building, taunting him from behind steel and glass

 

The food... well actually the food was better.

 

But even so, there was still a lot of reasons that David Greenwood hated Hospitals, a million petty nit digs and minor infractions that he could list, though the one he hated the most was that when you're at a hospital it is always because there's something wrong with either yourself, or somebody you care about, that feeling of anxiety that welled up in his chest, the feeling that at any moment something could go wrong, and the knowledge that something already went very wrong for them to even be there.

 

When David woke up  it had been  4 days since  they w ere admitted into sleep y peaks hospital , and  1 days since Max was released . Max had woken up the morning after just fine after a few stitches and an IV, none of the cuts were particularly deep, just minor blood loss the doctors told him, David however was much worse for wear, the strain of carrying Max, of driving, of sprinting through the forest, it had all done a number on the wound on his hip, tearing of his throat from all of the retching ,  blood loss from the other cuts, and to top it all  a split in his head from passing out onto the linoleum of the hospital waiting room.

 

Max was the first one there when David woke up, insisting that he didn't actually care about David, he just needed to teach him the cover story he told the doctors (Though later a nurse informed David that Max had been visiting him every day since he was allowed to leave his room and even refused to go back to camp until David woke up, sleeping in the chair in  David's room), while a bit horrified by how detailed the lie was, he couldn't say he wasn't impressed by how convincing it was, especially since David had no idea how he was going to answer the questions that come along with a strange man rushing into a hospital covered in blood with a bleeding child in his arms and passing out in the waiting room. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It had been  5 days since David and Max were admitted, 2 days since Max was released, and 1 day since David woke up that David realized that he had committed murder. He didn't know how he didn't realize it sooner, of course he did, he stabbed somebody in the back with a knife, felt the i r blood run down his hands, then kicked their corpse over , David spent most of that morning in the bathroom throwing up, and most of that  evening star r ing out of the window in silence, not even bothering to put on his normal chipper façade for the staff, not even noticing when Max came in and sat next to him, staring out of the window and sharing a moment of silence looking out over the trees that surrounded the hospital .

 

"Max ..." David's broke his eye contact with the horizon to look at the boy. "The hospital, or Gwen... I mean with injuries that severe and being admitted into a hospital and everything..."

 

Max sighed.

 

"Somebody called your parents right?" David asked.

 

Max was quiet, still starring out the window, he sat for a moment in thought before sighing and turning to David. "Yeah, The hospital called my parents."

 

"Oh! okay well that's good that they know, I bet they were worrie-" Max cut him off.

 

"They asked if i was alive and if they would be getting the hospital bill, when they found out the answers were yes and yes they started screaming about how I'm not even there and I'm still wasting their time and money." Max was quite again, still locked in a starring contest with horizon, his voice intentionally flat, though David could still hear the pain underneath.

 

"Oh." was all David said, it was all David could say.

 

And then they both were silent, sitting by the window watching  twilight sink below the horizon like the credits of a movie sliding off screen. Several minutes passed before David spoke again.

 

"I'm glad you're okay Max." he said, Max said nothing in response. "I know what I did was..." he let the sentence fall, the pause filling in the blank in Max's head as he remembered that night, “I don't regret it" David continued, causing  M ax to finally look at him, "In fact I'd do it again if I had to to protect one of my campers ." David put one arm around Max's shoulders and turned back to the window, he expected Max to push it off but instead Max pulled his legs into the chair and wrapped his arms around them, and then silence retook the room, both of them lost in the distance, too much on their minds to deal with anything else, and the things on their minds too heavy to deal with right now, so instead they just watched the sky grow dark, half hoping that the darkness would swallow their problems up and solve them for them. Unfortunately, darkness is only an anesthetic for anguish, not a cure, they knew that they would have to deal with these problems eventually, but for now they let the night sky numb them. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted this to be longer but i really didn't know how to continue it without it becoming a copy of my other Fic "Our Happy Ending", so i just cut it off during Max and David's talk during sunset.


End file.
